Can't Stop the Shine (28 page)

Elaine looked at Ronald.

“We've decided to spend some time apart,” he said, “but we want both of you to know that this decision has nothing to do with you.”

“Well, we know it's going to affect you, but what he means is that you aren't the reason for it,” Elaine said.

“I don't need you to clarify for me, Elaine. The girls know what I mean,” Ronald said harshly.

Elaine rolled her eyes. Numbed by their parents' news, neither Kalia nor Mari had been able to say a word. They watched their father open the refrigerator, pop open a beer and guzzle half of it before he put the can on the counter.

“Girls, are you all right?” their mother asked, reaching across the table to touch Kalia's hand. Neither answered as Kalia looked at her mother's hand on hers and felt sick.

Mari stood up abruptly. “Are you getting divorced?”

“Well, we're not saying that exactly,” said Ronald. “We just know we need to separate right now to figure some things out.”

“But you'll still be able to see us both,” Elaine added.

Mari sat down on the back steps. “So who's leaving?”

“I am,” said Ronald, taking another long swig. “Tonight.”

There was silence in the kitchen. No one said anything for a while.

“Do you have any questions?” their mother asked in a choked-up voice.

Kalia shook her head, got up and walked up the steps. Mari followed.

“I'm going to be staying downtown. Your mother will have the number,” they heard their father yell up the stairs after them.

Kalia had only been sitting in her room for about a minute when Mari came in with her jacket on.

“Come on,” she said, picking up Kalia's car keys. “I gotta get outta here. Let's go for a ride. Ooh, I'll be glad when I can drive without the parents.”

Kalia didn't say anything. She picked up her jacket and followed Mari down the front stairs. Not even bothering to tell their parents they were leaving, they walked out the front door and got in the car.

Listening to the oldies but goodies station, neither said anything for nearly half an hour. They drove through all kinds of neighborhoods letting Luther Vandross, Evelyn “Champagne” King, Phyllis Hyman and the SOS Band lead the way. They ended up at Grant Park, just as Stevie Wonder's “All Is Fair in Love” began playing. Kalia drove slowly in the parking area and backed into a space underneath a tree behind them. To their right they could see parents watching their children playing on the playground.

“Remember when we were kids, we used to play over there,” Mari said, watching a little boy swing himself from one monkey bar to the next.

Kalia didn't say anything. When Mari turned to look at her, tears were running down her sister's cheeks.

Kalia wiped her eyes and turned down the radio when Kool and the Gang's “Celebration” came on.

“You think they're gonna get a divorce?” Mari asked.

“I don't know. I mean, maybe.”

“It's going to be so strange going to visit Daddy somewhere else.”

“Yeah,” said Kalia. “God, what's going to happen to us?”

Mari returned her attention to the playground. “I remember when you fell off that seesaw and you busted your lip.” She smirked. “You were so mad at me, and your lip was so big. Remember we called you bubble lip for like a month?”

Kalia couldn't help but chuckle. “Yeah, I remember, brace face.” She smiled. “I also remember when you slid down the slide backward and landed on your head in the dirt.”

“That hurt, too,” said Mari, touching the back of her head.

“Remember Daddy came over and picked you up and promised he'd get you some ice cream if you'd stop screaming.”

“Yeah, yeah. We drove around all night trying to find chocolate chip ice cream.”

“We must have gone to six or seven stores.”

“But I bet I got it. Ma made sure of that,” said Mari.

“That was a fun night, back in the day,” Kalia said solemnly. “I guess we won't be having any more of those.”

“Them breaking up isn't why we won't be going out for ice cream anymore. We're just too old.”

“You know what I'm saying, Mari. Life is going to be different.”

“Yeah, I know, but we're just going to have to deal with it like everybody else does. Like who do we know whose parents are together? Hardly anybody except for Dewayne, and his parents are like zombies. It doesn't even matter.”

“I mean, we don't even get to see Daddy much when he's here. Now we're never going to see him unless we go to the Frys,” said Kalia, sighing. “I really need to go home and study for my midterms.”

“Ooh, yeah, me, too, and I've got a five-page paper due in European history, but I don't really feel like going home right now.”

“I need to practice, but I don't even feel like singing anymore. I really don't want to see Daddy leave. Do you?”

“Naw, not really,” Mari replied, “but you gotta practice, Kalia. I know Ma and Daddy are going through their thing, but you can't just not practice. The show is in like two weeks.”

“Maybe I won't even be in the show,” said Kalia.

“Oh, you're really trippin' now,” said Mari. “You need something to pour all of that emotion into, and I need for you to do it 'cause you gotta beat Asha. You know it's all about me, don't you?”

Kalia smiled at her sister. “I've got an idea,” she said, starting up the car. They drove to the nearest grocery store, went inside and bought a half-pint of chocolate chip ice cream and plastic spoons. They went back to the park, sat in the swings, reminisced more about their childhood and finished the entire carton.

Mari was determined not to let Asha beat her in the one hundred. Even though she did pretty well in cross-country, short distances were her thing, and the one hundred was her race. She'd used all her frustration about her parents separating in a couple of extra hours of practice in the last week because she wasn't going to have a repeat of her losing streak in cross-country meets last fall. She was certainly not going to let Asha beat her in a track meet.

She adjusted her shorts and shook her legs out, preparing to get down in the blocks. There was something about the first meet of the spring season, she thought, looking around the stadium at the sea of faces in the stands and on the field. She loved that the temperature was always just perfect, not too hot and not too cool. Humidity and rain would kick in in April, but in March, Atlanta felt good.

Asha was in the next lane, stretching out her long frame. Mari thought it was so strange that although they were different in size they were competitive in the same race. She decided to run her own race and forget Asha was even there. She got into the blocks, and when the starter gun went off, she flew down the track. In her mind's eye, there was no one out there but her. When she crossed the finish line, no one had to tell her she'd won, because she knew it in her spirit.

She slowed down, and her world slowly came back into focus. The audience was clapping as she turned around to see her opponent bent over, breathing heavily. Asha straightened up when the winner was announced and her name wasn't called. Walking past Mari to the bench she said, “You're lucky I'm concentrating more on the Fire contest than I am on track.”

“Whatever, loser,” said Mari, grinning. She grabbed a towel and dabbed at her brow. “I got skills, and so does my sister.”

“We'll see,” Asha said, walking away.

“We sure will,” Mari threw after her. The rest of the meet went great for her. Her four-by-four relay team won, and she came in second in the 400, but she didn't care because Asha wasn't in that race. After the meet, she got congratulations from Kalia, Dewayne, Colby and Sean, who offered to take her out for a celebratory dinner. She was so excited about beating Asha that she'd left her gym bag on the field. On the way back to the car to meet up with Colby and her sister, she stopped to talk to some other team members and saw Asha's mother, Roxanne, standing with a guy on the track.

“Hey, Mrs. Wright,” she said as they walked by.

“Oh, hello, Mari,” said Asha's mother. “Didn't I tell you to call me Roxie? I'm too young to be called Mrs. anything.”

“Oh, I'm sorry.” Mari giggled. “I totally forgot, Mrs…. I mean Roxie.”

“You had a great meet today, huh? Just ran on past my little Asha,” she said, winking.

“I guess,” said Mari, embarrassment creeping into her voice.

“Yeah, you're real fast,” said the guy with Roxie. “You must practice a lot.”

“Uh, yeah,” said Mari, looking at the Sean John suit he had on, thinking he was a little overdressed for a track meet.

“I hope your sister is practicing,” said Roxie, “because you may have beat my baby out here on the track, but on a stage?
Pfft,
that's another thing.”

“With all due respect, Mrs…. Roxie, Kalia is going to win next week. Trust me.”

“Well, like Jesse Jackson says, you keep hope alive, baby.” She laughed, grabbing her friend's arm. “Come on, Jackson. See ya, Mari.”

 

Kalia was starting to get stressed. She'd had her last rehearsal with the band the day before, and it had gone well—actually even better than well since JD showed up and they'd gotten a chance to talk, she still couldn't get rid of the feeling that she wasn't going to win. There were only two days left until the final show and she was a wreck, she thought, closing her economics book. Trying to study seemed to be a waste of time. She'd read half a chapter on inflation, and she didn't even remember what it was about. Looking out her window into the backyard, she thought about Asha and wondered what she'd be singing. She looked frantically around her room for something to clean or straighten, but her room was immaculate. She was just about to get in the bed and pull the covers over her head like she did when she was a child, when Dewayne walked in.

“How's it going, champ?” he asked.

“I'm going out of my mind,” Kalia whined, holding up her hands.

“Okay, okay,” he said, sitting down at her desk. “Tell big daddy what the problem is.”

Kalia sat on her bed with her legs crossed. “Dewayne, I don't think I can do this.”

“Do what?” he asked, chuckling.

Kalia gave him the evil eye. “I'm not talking to you. You're laughing at me.”

“No, I'm laughing with you,” he said, leaning over and tickling her on her stomach.

“Stop making me laugh,” Kalia protested weakly, swatting him away.

Seeing her smile, Dewayne took pride in his abilities. “The Chosen One is victorious again. See, that's what you needed, some good old-fashioned tickling. Now don't you feel better?”

“No,” she lied, smiling widely.

“Umm, hmm. So how about you take the night off and we do something fun? You've got like forty-eight hours before the show starts. Kicking it for a few hours isn't going to hurt.”

Kalia thought about it for a split second before she grabbed her jacket and they ran out the door. The next thing she knew, she was at the gaming restaurant, Dave and Busters, where after some chicken fingers, she and Dewayne got into a to-the-death battle of who could make the most free throws. At the end of the evening Kalia redeemed her tickets for a nice-sized teddy bear. Dewayne went home with a key chain.

The next afternoon Mari and Colby swept in to rescue her from her worries by accompanying her to the hair salon and the nail shop, then they helped her work on her performance techniques and answer crazy judge questions they threw at her. They even encouraged her to practice blowing her winner's kiss to the audience. Thinking that would jinx her performance, Kalia refused. Mari and Colby kept Kalia so distracted she really didn't miss her mother's involvement in the preperformance night shenanigans until she was snug in her bed. She thought about how much of a busybody her mother had always been the night before her performances when she was younger. She could never get her to leave her alone, checking and rechecking to see if Kalia had all of her costume or makeup or whatever she needed to be the star of the show.

One thing she didn't need was insomnia, she thought, fluffing her pillows. She couldn't help thinking about how weird it had been in their house the past couple of weeks. They'd only seen their father one time since he'd left, and that was when he called them and told them to meet him at one of the Frys for dinner one night. Their conversation had been strained, and their father was kind of sad and pitiful. He kept apologizing, which made them uncomfortable.

Turning over, Kalia thought her mother must be pretty uncomfortable, too, because she seemed to be making a point of never being there when she or her sister were. When she was home, she was closed up in her bedroom. Earlier in the week she'd walked up to her mother's closed door. When she got close enough, she heard her mother crying quietly and decided against knocking. As much time as she and Mari had spent together in the last week, they really hadn't talked much about their family situation. Ignorance
is
bliss, Kalia thought, drifting off. Her last thoughts were of her mother and how much she wished things would go back to the way they were when she was young and she knew in her heart that her parents were in love.

She got up the next day, refreshed and determined. She and Mari grabbed a full breakfast of grits, cheese eggs, pancakes and sausage at the Waffle House and hit the road. Most of the next day was a blur. After a dizzying schedule of running around, including going back to the hairdresser for a touch-up of her style; to the tailor for her outfit, which had to be altered; and to the drugstore for some of her favorite Maybelline mascara, she made it to the Fox theater in time to relax for a few minutes before she had to get dressed.

Mari, Colby, Sean and Dewayne had just left the dressing room when her mother walked in. They hadn't really had a real conversation in a week, so Kalia was uneasy, although she was happy to see her.

“Hey, Ma,” she said, swiveling from the mirror in her chair.

“Hi, sweetie,” said Elaine, ducking under a dress that was being handed over her head from one person to another. “It's wild outside. There's some type of live radio broadcast going on outside the theater with a Cool Ice or something.”

“Oh, it must be Cool Mike. He's been pumping the show up with JD on Hot 103.5.”

“JD, okay, whatever you say,” she said. “You know I don't know these hip-hop guys. You should see the theater. I don't want to make you nervous, but it's really packed out there. I don't think there's a seat available. Why didn't you tell me this was going to be on television?”

“Oh, so much has been going on that I totally forgot,” said Kalia. “Do you know what channel?”

“I don't know. I heard somebody say it was going to be filmed like a local reality show or something.”

“Really?” said Kalia, slightly distracted. Something was on her mind, and she didn't know what would happen if she asked her mother about it, but she did know that she wouldn't be able to perform if she didn't get an answer.

“Ma, is your friend here?”

Elaine got a quizzical look on her face.

“Your friend from the studio. Peter?”

Elaine's face dropped, and Kalia was sorry she'd brought up his name.

“No, he isn't here,” her mother said curtly. “Why would you ask about him?”

Kalia copped an attitude—fast. “What do you mean ‘Why would I ask about him?' I want to know if he's going to be out there watching, if you brought him to a family thing?”

“No, he isn't here, I said,” whispered Elaine, guilt softening her voice.

Kalia kept at her mother. “Well, is Daddy here? Do you guys even speak anymore?”

Elaine really looked hurt, and Kalia was starting to feel guilty for pushing so hard. “Yes, your father and I have talked—several times in fact. He said he was going to be here. I'm sure he's somewhere out there.”

“Oh,” said Kalia, deciding to lay off her mother's personal life.

“Look, I wanted to give you something for good luck, and this is really all I could think of,” said Elaine. “It was your great-grandmother's.” She pulled a maroon jewelry box out of her purse and handed it to Kalia. When Kalia opened it, a diamond-and-pearl bracelet lay delicately on crushed velvet.

“This is beautiful, Ma. Thanks,” she said, scooting out of her chair and giving her mother a hug, the first since her parents had told her they were separating. When she tried to let go, her mother held her a little longer. She felt her mother's heart beat against her own, and the warmth of her reminded Kalia of when she was young and used to snuggle in her mother's lap as she read her bedtime stories. She missed being close with her mother as much as Elaine missed their tight relationship.

Her mother fastened the bracelet on her arm, wished her good luck with a kiss on the forehead and rushed out of the dressing room, which was in a frenzy. The same madness from the preliminary show in December was going on again—contestants, parents, friends and stagehands were all zipping back and forth, questioning, shouting, laughing and generally turning the dressing room into a zoo, but Kalia didn't care. She didn't let anyone shake her inner resolve. Sitting in her chair, she looked carefully at herself in the mirror. She liked what she saw. She was ready.

And it was a good thing because the stagehands were rushing everybody into place for the beginning of the show. Funny that she hadn't seen Asha all evening until right before they were about to line up, then her fiercest competition ran in at the last moment in a fire engine-red minidress with sequins and spaghetti straps. Her lips were so red, her stilettos so high and her hair so wind-blown wavy, Kalia thought she looked like a runway model.

All of the contestants held hands and mouthed “good luck” and “break a leg” to one another as the band started the Who's Got That Fire? theme song. Then LaToya, Fire's hottest female singer, came out on stage, sang the lyrics to the theme song and introduced the judges. Kalia rolled her eyes as Carter got the most applause then stepped out on stage with the rest of the contestants for their opening wave. Looking at all of the outfits worn by the contestants as they paraded around the stage, Kalia was pleased with her choice. Her shimmery rhinestone butterfly blouse and fitted tuxedo pants didn't scream look-at-me-I-really-want-to-be-a-celebrity like Asha's, but it also didn't fade into the background. With deep berry lipstick, strappy stilettos and a real gardenia tucked in her hair behind her ear, her ensemble had just the right amount of funk and flash, Kalia thought as she gave her last wave at the audience before stepping off the stage into the wings.

She started to go back to the dressing room, but changed her mind when she remembered that Asha went on second. Watching the first contestant completely let his nerves get the best of him had Kalia talking to herself about remaining calm and remembering to think about her performance as one that she'd done a million times in Williams High practice rooms or at home. She knew she needed to be that comfortable if she was going to perform well. Big Spinner clowned the first contestant, Lola felt sorry for him, and Carter rated him so poorly that Kalia thought the guy would cry. He walked straight through the rest of the contestants when he came off stage and Kalia bet right out the stage door.